Yahoo CEO focuses on video ads under revamp

"I believe in ads, Iads. We may try some other things but Yahoo is an ad company," Mayer said, but added that it does not mean Yahoo will cut on its own original programming. 

The company's headcount has decreased by about 1,000 employees during her first year, through a combination of attrition and ramped-up performance management, with staffers now getting reviewed on a quarterly basis instead of every year, she said. 

But Mayer said the company was aggressively pursuing new talent: job applications recently peaked at 10,000 a week, more than twice the level of a year ago. 

At the same time, Mayer has moved to cut back the thickets of bureaucracy that she said had sprouted across the company over its 18-year history. 

Mayer installed a system called PB&J, short for Process, Bureaucracy and Jams. That has eliminated roughly 700 irksome or unnecessary procedures within the company, such as forcing employees to undergo a special orientation for the company gym. 

"I understand that we are geeks and we may not be that coordinated but I think we canfigure out how to use a treadmill without an orientation," Mayer said. 

Some industry-watchers assumed the PB&J moniker was an homage to the so-called "peanut butter manifesto," in which former Yahoo executives warned of problems plaguing the company. 

Mayer said the real story was much simpler. 

"Most days for lunch I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich," she explained. "So sitting there I was'Can we call it something simple and funPB&J?' And we kind of backed into process, bureaucracy and jams. But it works."